


Sleep

by dayindisguise



Series: Drabbles and Ficlets [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sleepless!Arthur, Soothing!Eames
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 20:00:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/866032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayindisguise/pseuds/dayindisguise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“<b>January 1st, 2013. Compound administered 0800 hours. Discharged 2100 hours. No side effects determined</b>.”</p><p>The handwriting was so neat and orderly, Eames knew it had to be Arthur’s own hand. Five days had passed since the compound was administered, according to the note, and Eames was quick to come to his own conclusions about why Arthur had come to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this fic came from a prompt on the Inception kink_meme, which I couldn't find to link to; the idea was that Arthur played guinea pig for one of Yusuf's new compounds, and it resulted in insomnia for Arthur. Credit goes to the original poster/prompter for that.

When Eames found Arthur trembling and stuttering on the doormat outside of his hotel room, he wasn’t entirely sure what to think. The pristine, polished Point Man looked wrecked and exhausted, dead on his feet even. Eames could see a mangled sheet of paper clutched in Arthur’s hand, but he waited for Arthur to speak to him, to explain what was going on before he did anything.

“I need…I can’t… Eames.” Arthur spoke, his voice heavy and coarse with exhaustion, looking at Eames with a sense of desperation which Eames hadn’t experienced from the Point Man.

“You can’t what, darling? Talk to me.” The concern was obvious on Eames’s face as he drew the other man into his hotel room. Eames found very quickly that he needed to support him; Arthur’s knees seemed to be made of jelly, and even with Eames’s support he was having a hard time staying upright. How he made it to Eames’s hotel room was even more of a mystery.

“ _Sleep_.” The word slipped out of Arthur’s mouth and Eames saw the tears welling in his eyes. Never had he experienced Arthur like this, the man normally so composed and put together. Arthur was still human, though; he wasn’t impervious to the effects of sleep deprivation.

It had to be the work of one of Yusuf’s compounds, but that wasn’t what worried Eames for the time being. Arthur seemed to become aware of the note in his hand and he managed to lift his arm enough to hold the note out to the other man. He allowed Eames to gently open his fingers and take the scrap of paper from them.

" **January 1st, 2013. Compound administered 0800 hours. Discharged 2100 hours. No side effects determined**." The handwriting was so neat and orderly, Eames knew it had to be Arthur’s own hand. Five days had passed since the compound was administered, according to the note, and Eames was quick to come to his own conclusions about why Arthur had come to him.

“Okay, okay, Arthur. We’re going to get you to sleep, kitten.” Eames’s voice was a soft, low coo, soothing to the wrecked man who was barely able to hold himself up.

Arthur babbled incoherently, his eyes unfocused, looking dizzy as he was lifted in strong arms and brought to a plush, dark leather couch. “Hush, Arthur. I’m going to fix this.” His words were a promise; he saw a glimmer of hope in Arthur’s eyes before receiving a solemn nod, the most coherent the man had been since arriving on his doorstep.

\- - - - - -

Eames could feel himself panicking slightly after four hours of failed attempts. The old remedies had proved no avail; warm milk, lavender, and gentle yoga and meditation (which Eames promised not to bring up again as Arthur stumbled and giggled and even sobbed at one point when he felt himself no calmer than he had been twenty minutes earlier). Eames had even called in a few favours of those in town, coming in contact with Melatonin pills, testing out Suntheanine tea, anything that Eames could acquire in a short period of time. Arthur was sobbing openly into Eames’s shoulder by midnight, the sleep deprivation eliminating all of Arthur’s self-control, and the flood of emotions poured out.

He was terrified he would never sleep again, and Eames could feel it in the way his body shook and the sobs that made his heart clench. Desperate for a solution, and a solid eight hours after Arthur had appeared on his doorstep, Eames himself was feeling exhausted and made a last desperate attempt to lull Arthur into sleep. He’d undressed the man earlier, just enough that he could sleep comfortably in his undershirt and boxers, and cradled Arthur to his chest. He let the dark head of hair come to meet with his shoulder, and holding Arthur like he would an infant or a bride, he began to rock him back and forth while singing softly to the man in his arms.

His voice wasn’t fabulous, it was nothing special, but it would be better than unsettling silence. To say this was not how Eames had pictured his day was a grand understatement, nor had he ever pictured himself cradling, rocking and singing softly to a full grown man, but there he was. He had to do everything he could for Arthur. He couldn’t give up on him. Eames felt his own panic ceasing the longer he sung, the longer he rocked the exhausted Arthur, and though his arms were growing sore, his legs were aching, he felt the tension gradually releasing from Arthur’s muscles. Soon, Eames could feel soft breaths ghosting over his skin from how Arthur’s head laid against his shoulder, steady, even, deep breaths signifying sleep. Carefully, without stopping his singing, Eames laid Arthur into the plush bed and found himself lying alongside him. Eames idly stroked his fingers through Arthur’s hair, the gel long gone by this point, just wild, dark locks which Eames took to smoothing back himself. He stayed with the sleeping Arthur, worried that the fix would only last a few moments. It held true and Arthur was still sound asleep when Eames himself drifted off.

Eames woke first in the morning, slowly stirring awake to find his arm draped around a sleeping Arthur who hadn’t moved during the night. He looked so peaceful. Eames didn’t have the heart to wake him. He deserved a good night’s sleep… or day’s sleep.

It wasn’t for another twelve hours that Arthur rose from a death-like sleep, wandering out of the bedroom of Eames’s suite to see a content-looking Eames watching a little telly. The forger lifted his eyes from the screen to meet Arthur’s, smiling warmly and moving to his feet.

“I don’t remember coming here,” Arthur’s voice was rough with sleep, “but thank you for whatever you did.” He’d been alerted to being in a hotel room that wasn’t his own by the suits hanging on the edge of the armoire, by the distinct scent Eames left behind on the pillow for Arthur to wake up to. There was no denying whose hotel room he was in.

“I’m sorry it took so long for me to figure it out.”

“Eames… I… I don’t remember much of… Anything, really… but…Thank you.”

“We don’t have to talk about it, Arthur, darling. Let me make some tea. Sit.”

So Arthur sat, he drank proper tea with Eames while watching some horrid reality television show, and in a few hours, he was sound asleep in Eames’s bed for another night. Arthur said it was in case the sleep remedies had an adverse effect, so Eames could wake him up. Eames wasn’t so sure that was the truth, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all.


End file.
